I’ve been a big fan of having an “Empty Recycle Bin” option on my right-click context menu in Windows (XP and Vista) for many years now. It acts as both a reminder as to whether I’ve deleted something (the option is active) or whether I’ve recently cleaned things out (the option is greyed-out). More importantly, it’s a great little shortcut to simply empty the recycle bin in Windows. With the upcoming release of Windows 7, though, the Registry edit to add the option no longer works. After some thorough forum- and web-searching, I’ve found the answer.

The old CLSID for the Recycle Bin was {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}. You could simply add this as a new key to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\ registry entry, and the “Empty Recycle Bin” option would show up on your context menu whenever you clicked in blank space (either on your desktop or within a folder).

After rooting around a bit, it looks like a new command was added specifically to Windows 7 for the emptying of the recycle bin. If you look at this location: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\shell\empty , you’ll notice that there is now a command entry. Thus, to make this option work for the context menu on your desktop and folders, you simply need to duplicate the “empty” key and its “command” subkey in the appropriate location. Here’s the code to make this work (please be sure to always back up your registry before you make any changes – I take no responsibility for any problems or issues that may arise):


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\empty]
"CommandStateHandler"="{c9298eef-69dd-4cdd-b153-bdbc38486781}"
"Description"="@shell32.dll,-31332"
"Icon"="shell32.dll,-254"
"MUIVerb"="@shell32.dll,-10564"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\empty\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{48527bb3-e8de-450b-8910-8c4099cb8624}"


Doing this even gives you the little Recycle Bin icon in your context menu. Cool! I hope this helps anyone out there looking for an answer to this problem!

Anyhow, the ski season got off to a slow start (except for the massive December storm), and we were left skiing on ice for almost a month. At one point, it got up to ~60 degrees at Mt. Hood Meadows…in January! Fortunately, though, things improved in mid-to-late February and continued to get better and better from there. The skiing at both Mt. Bachelor and Mt. Hood Meadows was awesome – lots of late-season powder days. Here’s hoping that next year is just as good!

The first photo below is from Mt. Bachelor at the end of January – it was nice and cold, but there had been very little snow for almost a month – you can see the blue ice beneath the Summit lift! The last two photos are from late-April at Mt. Hood Meadows. The snow really piled up at the top of the mountain – you can see that the traverse to Upper Heather was really built-up.

In fact, this year was so good that I’m looking into buying some new powder skis. The Line Sir Francis Bacon skis from last year are a pretty good deal right now, and all the reviews have been really positive. If only El Niño wasn’t strengthening right now!!!

And now that my first quarter as a graduate student is over (except for grading ENGR 201 finals!), I’m looking forward to the winter break.  Fortunately, it looks like the next few weeks are shaping up to be cold and wet (which, in the mountains = snow), so the skiing forecast is starting to look much more positive after an initially very slow start.  This is the forecast for days 8-14 from the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service:

Things are looking really good, with above-normal precipitation and below-normal temperatures. Let’s hope that this is actually what happens!

Of course, there is always an element of chance in predicting the weather, but one can only hope that conditions will end up as nice as last year.  The overall weather pattern is trending toward La Niña, which normally bodes well for snow in the mountains.  I’m really looking forward to getting out to a variety of ski areas this year.  Besides skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows, I am also going to be going to Mt. Bachelor as part of a skiing class that I am taking through OSU.  And, of course, I really want to make it back to Crystal this year.  There is nothing like standing at the top of Crystal on a beautiful, crisp morning with only a few people around and fresh powder to be enjoyed:

So…who’s excited for ski season?

I’ll let our new President-elect speak for himself:

America was founded on the belief that a government can only function with the consent of the people.  The Declaration of Independence says so directly:

…governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Our founding fathers, over 230 years ago, understood that a nation is only as strong as its citizens.  Let the rest of the world see that we are indeed still strong, not just because of the might of our military – but this time because of the intensity of our intellect and the participation of our people.  We must remind the world that we, too, have the ability to effect change.  So…please vote!

It is up to each and every one of the people in this nation to decide as a whole the direction that our future should take.  Voting is the most direct way that you can take a stand and proclaim, “This is where I want to see us go.”  Even though I may or may not agree with your political views, I still believe that we must all participate.  So…please vote!

Finally, I’m reminded of a quote from Edward R. Murrow, the famous newsman:

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Don’t be passive and let others speak for you, don’t assume change will happen of its own volition, don’t sit back and let your voice be silent, don’t let over two centuries of democracy go to waste.  Don’t be a sheep.

Please, vote!

For more information, try one of these links: JustVote.org RocktheVote.com

Here are a couple of pictures from the game and aftermath (when the students rushed the field). I couldn’t resist the chance, so I waited for the madness to calm down a bit, and then joined them!  I apologize for the quality of the photos, as I took them with my iPhone in a large raucous crowd.

OSU-USC game after the fourth quarter interception

Final score of the OSU-USC game from the on-field celebration

I was surprised that after only a year of classes and some mentoring, the students were able to put together something this complex. The key is the TekBots system that Oregon State has developed, which provides hands-on application of classroom knowledge in the labs. It would have been great to have something this hands-on when I was an undergrad.

I hope to add more frequent posts in the coming days and weeks. Since I like to watch movies and I read quite a bit, I may start posting some mini-reviews for various media that I have recently read/watched.

I’ve also added the a new version of Gallery to the site (although the photos are hopelessly out-of-date).